A Book With Becky

A few months back I suggested to my wife that we write a book together.

(After all, Becky is a good writer . . . I mean, I've read her refrigerator notes and they are quite articulate. Example: "You forgot to buy milk, you idiot." Now that's great writing. Succinct, passionate, to the point. Oh, and she signed it, "Love".)

But I digress. Anyway, when I suggested the book, she asked, "What would we write about?"

"Lots of things,"I told her. "How about a book on parenting? We could tell other people how to avoid all of the mistakes we've made. Or we could write a book entitled, To Infinity and Beyond."

"What's that about?"

"We tell people how to milk 200,000 miles out of their cars, how to go 10,000 miles between oil changes, how to patch bald tires with super glue and duct tape, stuff like that."

"I don't want to write a book with you," she told me.

"Why not?"

"It's too much work," she said. "I see you in there nearly every night, hunkered down over your tiny little screen, spraying cooking oil on the keyboard so it won't short out."

She's right, of course. But I'm amazed that she recognized that writing is actually work. Perhaps I've taught her that much. She won't write with me, but she did tell me she was going to pick up a new spray can of cooking oil. I know there's one more book left in Old Sparky. All I have to do is keep synapses lubricated.